Bitcoin, which is the most profitable and its name has become synonymous with crypto money, Dogecoin, which turned into a serious joke thanks to Elon Musk’s tweets, and Ethereum, which became one of the favorites of investors with its gain of 450 percent from the beginning to the end of 2021.

Ethereum is not a stand-alone cryptocurrency. A decentralized and open source blockchain that underpins many cryptocurrencies. In other words, there are many currencies that work based on Ethereum. The institutional cryptocurrency of this blockchain is called Ether.

Those who follow the news about the crypto money markets a little bit closely, of course, immediately said “Vitalik Buterin” when they saw this question. This answer is not wrong but incomplete. Buterin is the face of Ethereum, but not the only name behind it. Ethereum’s think tank consists of eight people.

In fact, in an article published in the financial newspaper Financial Times last September, it was stated that Buterin compared these eight people to the “fraternity of the ring” in the “Lord of the Rings” series written by JRR Tolkien.

However, it is not possible to say that the story of the group is a very warm fraternity story. On the contrary, Ethereum’s history is full of ongoing feuds. It is also noteworthy that two people who played a role in the establishment of the blockchain in a rental house they called “spaceship” in Switzerland, set up their own blockchain, which is seen as a rival to Ethereum, after leaving here.

Buterin very clearly expressed in a tweet he shared last September that he has regrets about the people he set out with. When asked, “What are your biggest regrets in your Ethereum journey? (non-technical issues)” Buterin replied, “The whole ‘eight founders’ thing (and picking them so quickly and indiscriminately).”

1. VITALIK BUTERIN

The 27-year-old Buterin became the world’s agenda by gaining the title of “youngest crypto millionaire” when the value in Ether reached 350 percent in May. At the time, Buterin was said to have roughly 334,000 Ether in his wallet. When this amount is calculated with the value of Ether on December 31, it corresponds to a figure of 1 billion 270 million dollars.

Born in a city approximately 1,000 years old southwest of Moscow in Russia, Buterin’s mother was a financial analyst and his father was a computer scientist. The family, who immigrated to Canada for better job opportunities, sent Buterin to private school. Butelin, who was interested in programming, economics and Bitcoin, published the white paper of his project called Ethereum in 2013, when he was just 19 years old. At the time, he described Ethereum as a Wikipedia page for sci-fi elements.

The white paper suggested using the blockchain technology behind Bitcoin for other purposes as well. In other words, users would be able to buy and sell not only tokens but also other assets such as houses and shares via the blockchain.

Buterin, who has collected around $ 18 million in funds for this project, released the first version of Ethereum in July 2015, with the support of a group of developers. There were some fluctuations in the first year, but the price increases continued, albeit gradually.

With a hacker attack in 2016, 50 million worth of Ether was vaporized. This situation caused the value of the crypto currency to hit the bottom. However, the crypto money boom in 2017 also increased the price of Ethereum from $ 8 to $ 840, that is, increased it 105 times. The market cap of Ether, whose popularity has been increasing day by day since then, reached $19 billion in April 2020. As of December 31, the total value of Ether is calculated at $441 billion.

Before publishing Ethereum’s white paper, Buterin briefly studied at the University of Waterloo. There he took lessons from well-known cryptographer Ian Goldberg and founded “Bitcoin Magazine”, one of the first publications focused exclusively on cryptocurrencies.

He won the Thiel Scholarship at the end of the spring semester in 2013. Within the scope of this scholarship, 24 university students each year are entitled to receive a scholarship of $100,000 over a 2-year period. The condition of the scholarship is: You will drop out of school and start your own business. For Butelik, this requirement corresponded to the realization of Ethereum.

In June 2017, when the cryptocurrency boom made Ethereum the number one competitor to Bitcoin, rumors began to circulate on social media that Butelik was dead. According to Coindesk, rumors that first appeared on 4chan said that Butelik died as a result of a traffic accident. Although there was no evidence, the rumor quickly spread on the Internet.

To prove he was alive, Boutelik had to tweet a photo of him showing a handwritten note to the camera. The photo contained the number (i.e. the ‘hash’) of the last Ethereum block in the chain.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did the same a few months ago. Wanting to suppress the death rumors about himself, Assange posed for the camera with a paper on which the latest hash of Bitcoin was written. In both cases, no one could doubt that Butelik and Assange were alive, as it was not possible for a deceased person to predict this sequence of numbers.

Around the same time, Buterin met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the rapidly developing crypto landscape in Russia. At that time, while cryptocurrencies were still in limited use in the USA and Europe, they were spreading rapidly in Russia.

According to CNN, that year the Central Bank of Russia issued a warning against tokens. In the warning, it was stated that the anonymity of Bitcoin and related currencies could pave the way for illegal activities such as money laundering and terrorist financing. Later, an official also mentioned possible restrictions.

However, on June 2, the Kremlin said in a statement that Putin’s St. He reportedly met with Buterin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Buterin told Putin about the possibilities of using the technologies he developed in Russia, and Putin supported the idea of ​​establishing cooperation with possible Russian partners.

In 2018, Buterin attended the Deconomy conference held in Seoul. A panel on Bitcoin would be held as part of the conference. One of the panelists was Australian businessman Craig Wright.

Wright is very famous in the crypto world because in 2015, Wired magazine suggested that he was the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Wired retracted the claim a few days later, but Wright embraced the claim that he was Nakamoto; He started speaking at conferences and filing lawsuits on behalf of Bitcoin.

Buterin was one of those who vehemently opposed Wright’s claims. That’s why he took on the task of live-tweeting the conference himself, and tirelessly prepared a chain of 62 tweets.

Finally, during the Q&A, he stood up and detonated the bomb: “Considering that Craig Wright has made so many mistakes and uttered irrelevant words, why is this impostor allowed to speak at this conference?” (Heavy applause from the audience, silence from Wright…)

There is no end to the interesting details about Butelik, but one of the most interesting is that he is interested in studies that focus on stopping aging and extending human lifespan. We don’t say this, he says it himself in his pinned tweet on Twitter. Moreover, in an interview with venture capitalist Morgan Beller, Buterin touched upon this issue.

2. CHARLES HOSKINSON

Known as a mathematical genius, Charles Hoskinson soon became one of the most influential members of the Ethereum group and became Ethereum’s first CEO. However, due to incompatibility with the other founders, his role in the project ended within a few months. Hoskinson advocated Ethereum as a for-profit project, while Buterin opposed the idea and wanted a non-profit platform.

There are multiple stories about how the breakup happened. Hoskinson states that he left the project voluntarily, others say Buterin fired Hoskinson. Either way, the two still don’t like each other very much and often make statements criticizing the other’s methods.

Hoskinson launched Cardano, one of their rival blockchain platforms, after leaving Ethereum. Cardano’s internal cryptocurrency ADA was also one of the winning values ​​for 2021.

Known as the “ETH killer”, Cardano is also a blockchain structure that allows users to develop their own projects.

3. GAVIN WOOD

British computer scientist Gavin Wood became one of the key software developers after joining the Ethereum crew in 2014. In fact, it was Wood, the CTO, who created the first Ethereum testnet. In addition, Wood made many important contributions to the programming of Ethereum.

Wood left Ethereum and founded Polkadot in 2016. Polkadot, which aims to connect different blockchains, is also seen as another ETH killer crypto network. Polkadot’s internal cryptocurrency DOT, just like ADA, brought a lot to its investors in 2021.

Wood also comes to the fore with his critical statements about Ethereum from time to time. For example, at an event he attended in 2020, he hurled a salvo that the transaction speed in Ethereum was much lower compared to Polkadot.

4. JOE LUBIN

Born in Canada, Joe Lubin had a very different profile compared to other Ethereum founders he joined in 2013. He was in his 50s while the other founders were in their 20s and had a pretty solid career.

Thanks to his childhood interest in squash and math, Rubin studied computer science at Princeton University. (One of his closest friends here was billionaire hedge fund investor Michael Novogratz.) After graduating, he managed the Princeton robotics lab, worked as a software and artificial intelligence consultant at two computer companies in New York, then worked at Goldman Sachs for 2 years. . (I’ve never been a Wall Street person, I’m a software person,’ he told the Financial Times in an interview.)

However, losing faith in the traditional financial system due to the 2008 crisis, Lubin became part of Ethereum in his search for innovation. He was also one of those who wanted to launch Ethereum as a for-profit, commercial venture. Despite this, Lubin and Buterin managed to establish a balanced relationship.

Lubin respected Buterin’s genius and saw that he was not really interested in material things. (“His only concern was to change the world,” he told the Financial Times.) Buterin relied on Lubin’s experience and guidance in politics and high finance. Although not as prominent to many as Buterin, Lubin played an equally important role in the success of the Euthereum.

In addition to being the co-founder of Ethereum, Lubin is also the founder of ConsenSys, a for-profit Ethereum development company. ConsenSys has implemented many projects on Ethereum. In this context, the first example that comes to mind is MetaMask, one of the most widely used “wallets”. Let us remind you that ConsenSys received investments from many sources such as JPMorgan and UBS in 2021.

Declared the second richest person in the crypto world by Forbes magazine in 2018, Lubin’s personal wealth is thought to range between $1 billion and $5 billion.

5. ANTHONY DI IORIO

Canadian Anthony Di Iorio was known as an investor and a Bitcoin enthusiast before Buterin invited him to Ethereum. Di Iorio, one of those who disliked the idea of ​​Ethereum as a non-profit platform, chose not to take a very active role in the group, despite Buterin’s invitation. Di Iorio, who later founded Decentral in 2014, offered the Jaxx Liberty crypto wallet to users under this roof. The number of users of Jaxx reached 1 million in 2021.

News about Di Iorio hit the agenda like a bombshell in June this year. Announcing that he will leave the crypto world and sell Decentral, Di Iorio stated that the company, which he says is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, wants to be paid in a way such as traditional money or stocks, not crypto money.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Di Iorio emphasized that one of the most important reasons for his decision was his concerns about his personal security, and said, “I don’t want to be known as the ‘crypto guy’ anymore. I don’t feel safe in this environment. It was also stated in the news that 48-year-old Di Iorio had been traveling with a security team since 2017, and that he did not leave his bodyguards with him, especially during his travels.

Di Iorio also stated that his desire to focus on philanthropy and projects outside of crypto was also instrumental in his decision. Saying that he wants to “focus on more complex problems”, Di Iorio is known to be involved in Project Arrow, which is doing the latest zero-emission vehicle studies. Forbes reported in June that Di Iorio’s personal fortune was $1 billion.

6. MIHAI ALISIE

Mihai Alisie was one of the co-founders of Bitcoin Magazine with Buterin in 2011. Alisie played an important role in the establishment of the Swiss-based company, which formed the legal and financial base of Ethereum in the early days.

Alisie, who was also the vice president of the Ethereum Foundation, which supported the platform until 2015, founded Akasha after she left. Akasha is described as a crypto project that aims to use technology for social purposes.

7. JEFFREY WILCKE

Computer programmer Jeffrey Wilcke was in a critical position in the early days of Ethereum. Wilcke wrote a version of the platform in the Google Go language, which later evolved into Go Ethereum (or Geth for short).

After leaving Ethereum, Wilcke founded a gaming company called Grid Games with his brother. Wilcke was one of the people who talked about the tense atmosphere at Ethereum after he left. Wilcke, in a dialogue he entered on Twitter in 2019, states that he tried to solve the problems in Ethereum in the early days and failed. he was saying.

8. AMIR CHETRIT

Chief Chetrit is the most mysterious and the least public figure among the 8-member group. Before joining Ethereum, Chetrit, like Buterin, was working at a crypto startup called Colored Coins.

According to journalist Matthew Leising, who has a book on Ethereum called “Out of Ether”, other founders felt that Chetrit was not good enough to do its part. For this reason, Leising states, Buterin fired Chetrit from the project, just like Hoskinson.

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